Pove The Great - Dan Wood Returns With A Brand New Book

Dan Wood Launches his New Book Pove The Great

After the recent success of his last publications, Suicide Machine and Gap in The Hedge, published by the fantastic Another Place Press, Dan Wood returns with his latest book, Pove The Great.

Focused once again in and around Bridgend in Wales, this publication and project focuses on a single individual called Steve Povey. Described as a “Troubled Soul”, the book focuses on Steves affiliation with the woods and how they are a place of “temporary escape from the modern world”.

Differing from Woods last projects, Pove the Great feels intimate and far more personal than work we have seen before. Seeing the images for the first time is a unique affair, flicking from portrait to landscape, handwritten note to polaroid, we truly get a sense of the difficulties the subject has faced from a young age.

These personal, thought provoking notes are the veins to the project. The relationship between subject and viewer takes on a new meaning as we are seamlessly led through an intimate and tragic storyline of Steves life. Even with the backstory, there is still an overwhelming sense of freedom felt within the work which Wood touches on:

“I’m highly envious of his freedom and relationship with nature and have nothing but outright reverence for him and the way he chooses to live his life.”

This freedom is summed up by Wood:

“Watching him wander the woods with a beer in one hand and slingshot in the other made everything become so conclusive and unequivocal to me: For he really is, Pove the Great!”

Woods images lead us on a fascinating adventure. However, they are more than that, they highlight problems faced on a national level. The story of Steve Povey opens up more questions than answers. On the one hand, we have the intimate story of the subject, but on the other, we have to ask the questions of how and why we allow individuals to go unsupported in our society and must, highlight the failures of the Government at a local and national level. Wood discusses Steve:

“Steve has been dealt a bad hand in life, an unfair one. Once an extremest talented guitarist he now battles with alcoholism and ill-health due to cruel life events, and at only 39, is completely off the radar with society – although it is certain he prefers it that way.”

The genre of Documentary photography and work of Dan Wood once again tells us a story we would otherwise, be completely unaware of and has done a fantastic job doing so.

It is crucial that we support the work of photographers. Regardless of the industry, the money, exhibitions, it is about the stories we tell. The stories that will be looked back on in 20,50,100 years time, the ones nobody else can replicate, the ones that may otherwise be forgotten. We must live in the moment and create the work we want to make, not chase something that doesn’t exist. I urge you to grab a copy of the book and help Dan tell more stories. His New book Pove the Great is available to buy here.